


see you in the funny papers

by Nappinginthegrave



Category: Fargo (TV)
Genre: M/M, don't smoke it's bad yuckie, frankly. it's not your business, i am once again asking you to forgive me if you speak italian, oh how lame they don't even kiss in this? thumbs down dislike, so maybe im stupid. what of it
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-13
Updated: 2021-01-13
Packaged: 2021-03-17 10:08:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,938
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28723365
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nappinginthegrave/pseuds/Nappinginthegrave
Summary: s04e07 Lay Away alternate sceneif omie and calamita had a little chat while the meeting went on inside. tale as old as time, two people from opposing groups finding common groundsubtitled. what's yours is mine, what's mine is mine
Relationships: Omie Sparkman/Constant Calamita
Comments: 2
Kudos: 5





	see you in the funny papers

“If we’re not out in thirty minutes, come in shooting.” 

Life was meant to be precious. Revered and saved at any cost. The ever increasing list of complications that a human life is comprised of has made it easier to obscure the value inherent in each person. Want for power neatly burrowing a path to inhumanity. This is what's led to a meeting of men in a small Kansas City warehouse. Outside it's the dead of winter and without sun as the early afternoon threatens night. The subject of conversation knelt bloodied and battered in a slaughterhouse across town. Underlings of the mob bosses wait patiently, albeit on edge, as the fate of one of their own hangs in the balance.

Omie and Calamita had split off the main group. Glaring daggers before nerves pushed them towards the relief of nicotine. The only place somewhat out of the wind was the other side of the building.

“It’s a coward’s move to kidnap.” Calamita spits downwards, just missing Omie’s pant leg. “Tu no del valore di la sporco su le scarpe di Gaetano.” _You’re not worth the dirt on Gaetano’s shoes._

“I don’t speak pig latin, but I know you speak English. So hear me.” Omie stood eye-to-eye with Calamita. “You’d best take a step back before I have to knock sense into you.” Omie brings his fist up halfway. The wraps are no longer around his knuckles, and there is apparent swelling, light but noticeable enough to catch the other man’s eye.

Calamita stood for another moment before retreating. He puffed on his cigarette as Omie hummed a tone of self-assurance at him.

“Mm-hmm. Haven’t changed a note.” Omie throws his spent cigarette to the ground before crushing it with the tip of his winter boot. “You can’t even learn a lesson when I brand it into your face?” He smacks the bottom of his cigarette box until a new one slides up. It hangs between his lips only barely, swinging wildly with the tilt of his head before he pulls it further into his mouth.

Calamita wrinkles his cheek subconsciously. He doesn’t try to look. It’s background noise. He’s not paying attention except that he is.

Loy had given Omie this lighter a few months into his employment. Gold plated with an inscription of his initials. He flips it open and the flame almost shrieks against the cold surroundings. Its struggle resembles something like beautiful. Shimmering and fragile. He lets a passing breeze blow it out before shutting the lighter and returning it to his pocket.

Calamita hunches slightly, unused to this impotence. Waiting made it worse. To hover on the outskirts, out of the loop, while Gaetano's sized up and bartered like an animal. The ember of his cigarette has almost reached the filter at this point. He holds it at his side before letting it fall. The red angry end turning to grey ash as it hits slush on the ground. Anticlimactic. Not as captivating as the dancing of the flame. For that performance, he doesn’t have the energy to stamp it down with his heel.

He had thought a great deal about flicking the embers onto Omie’s coat, but it’s more daydream than intention, the anger doesn’t have anything to grab onto. Especially not compared to the raw misery clawing up his system. “Is he okay?” Calamita looks to Omie, face unusually open and sincere. “Gaetano,” he clarifies. “Alive?” The word falls flat off his tongue. Hope and fear and worry make him reach into his pocket for his cigarette case. “Merda,” he curses. It’s empty.

Omie feels he shouldn’t. This is a war they’re both fighting, and that means politeness has no currency. He can’t find a good reason as to why. Pity has only caused him more grief than gain. Still, he’s drawn to the idea of reaching into his coat. He pulls out a fresh cigarette and lights it off the tip of his own before handing it over.

“He is.”

“Thanks.” Calamita nods his head once. A slight smile he doesn’t want to wear flicks up his mouth, but it fades the instant it appeared.

Omie waits until his lungs have a good burn of smoke to them, then he starts talking, again. “You were close? Are close?” He gestures with his hand, pointing between Calamita and a ghost figure.

Calamita shifts his weight for a moment before replying. “He was my boss. We got along pretty well. He’s old school, yunno? Easier to navigate than his brother,” he admits.

“Huh. Easier.” Omie says the word with doubt. “He seems more unpredictable than easy.” Omie tilted his head slightly. He’s trying to be generous and not describe Gaetano as a screwball masochist. “He started laughing right before I hit him. He wouldn’t stop.” Something cold unsettles Omie’s stomach and he leans against the brick wall behind him. Physically touching the wall, pressing into it with some force, helped him focus back into the present.

_That sounds like him_ , Calamita wants to say. Trapped under a desire to laugh out of tension, but he remains quiet. He lets the discomfort sit and ponders on how accustomed he’d become to the other man’s manic worship of violence. That frenzied energy was as infectious as it was dangerous. “Yeah,” is the most he can say in reply. He deflates with the word, taking his place beside Omie. The desire to protect Gaetano fades a little. Why run after tornadoes.

“He is still alive,” Omie reiterates as he pulls up his collar and presses it close to his neck. “Cannon never planned on killing him.”

“I think I should feel relieved,” Calamita replies. He’s staring at the grey column of ash on his cigarette. This entire time he’d been holding it by his side, lost in thought. “I’m not.” A lie crawls through his mind. Maybe not a lie, an omission. Gaetano was taken for Doctor Senator’s death, but he wasn’t the one to pull the trigger. Calamita tosses the half-spent cigarette to the ground and kicks wet snow overtop it. “I am sorry about the death of your man. That never should have happened.”

Omie stiffens, his good eye hardening in a glare. “Well, it did. Sorry or not.”

He steps away from Calamita, remembering the meaning of the word enemy. Points to the right side of his face. The milky pupil staring back at the other man. “This was round five of a welterweight championship. I got sideswiped across the head and my cornea was scratched. Scratch got infected. For weeks after, I’d tell my coach something didn’t feel right, but he told me I was being impatient. Keep it covered up and it’d heal on its own.” Omie took a slow drag off his cigarette.

“By the time I got to the clinic, I’d lost all sight in my right eye. Irreversible, inoperable. If I’d just taken some pills or drops...I could still be fighting.” He exhales out through his nose in a short puff. Anger brought out from the past didn't hit him as bright as it did before, but it still drained him. The moment stretches out as he settles. He lets go of a breath he didn't realize he was holding. A plume of fog pushes out from his lungs and obscures his face for a moment.

Tiredness overcomes Omie. He goes back to leaning against the brick wall. Scuffing up the shoe prints he left in the muddy snow as he looks down. “Apologies do nothing to change what happened. Too often they’re to ease the guilt of the offender instead of helping anybody.”

Omie smokes in silence, pensive.

Words die in his throat. Calamita keeps opening his mouth only to close it, hoping the motion might egg on some kind of coherent thought, but nothing seems enough. Giving up hope, he shifts the subject. “Maybe it wouldn’t be so bad for your boss to keep Gaetano. Blood for blood.”

“No.” Omie says it certain and clear. A twinge of enjoyment at setting Calamita back on his heels.

“No?”

“Can’t buy shit with blood.” He picks a bit of ash off his tongue. “You’ll get your boy back and in exchange we’ll get the slaughterhouses and trucking routes. He’ll be your mess, again.”

“Right.” Calamita rubs a hand down his face. He pats down his pocket and hears the jingle of the metal case then remembers. _Oh yeah empty_. “Can I-” But then he interrupts himself and stops talking.

“Next time I see you, I’ll expect a fresh pack,” Omie speaks in a tone that edges on friendly. Instead of handing a cigarette over immediately, he pulls two out and sticks them in his mouth. He holds them there for a second before digging in around for his lighter.

Calamita isn’t looking away as he did before, like he thinks he should, again. Four eyes. Three colors. Omie with his brown and grey, then the two red cigarette ends glowing bright as Omie inhales. The smoke is slow almost hesitant to leave his lips. Calamita can’t blame it. His eyes widen a fraction as he pushes away that thought.

“Here.” Omie holds one out in between his fingertips.

He thinks about not taking it, but Calamita doesn't hesitate for long. He tries not to dwell on the warmth of the paper as he slips it in his mouth. Something like a kiss from afar. “Grazie.”

“Prego.” Omie smirks when Calamita quirks his eyebrow up.

Calamita doesn’t watch intently as Omie puffs away, Omie’s eyes closing to better enjoy the burn. Almost like an invitation to admire him. Calamita doesn’t notice Omie’s hand hovering in the air. Despite minor swelling at the knuckles they're clean with nails as precisely kept as his own. Outside of his prominent moustache, his entire face is clean instead of stubbled like lesser men. Shaved close by steady and meticulous motions. Calamita only just stops himself from running his thumb across Omie’s jaw.

The doors to the building clatter open and both men start up quick. Shaken from the quiet and stillness.

Josto sounds happy with himself in that way that always ends poorly. “CALAMITA! Where the hell are you? Get the lead out. Adesso!” 

The two of them remain still. Safe as they are tucked away from the others, it's tempting to walk the other way.

“Good luck with that.” Omie points to the fleet car of cars with the butt of his cigarette. “I’ll be seeing ya.”

“Yeah.” Calamita pauses, wishing to shake Omie’s hand for a reason he can’t pin down. Any excuse to touch the other man. “Thanks, again.” He finishes his cigarette with a long pull and pockets the stub. A simple keepsake. There's no explanation he could give for his lingering. He remembers this place isn't meant for him.

They share a fleeting look before Omie nods him off. Disappearing into a side door of the building. Alone Calamita walks back into the biting wind of a Missouri winter. Sluggish as he gets into the front passenger seat of Josto's car.

"What took you so long? You going steady with one of Cannon's men?" Josto smirks at his own joke. The moment passes as Josto was simply breaking the ice before he relays all the information from the meeting in rapid fire. It doesn't matter to him that Calamita is miles away. Energy would have him nattering away regardless of his audience.

"Yeah." Calamita rolls his eyes at his boss and spends the rest of the ride staring out the window, wishing he had a cigarette.

**Author's Note:**

> skeleton men with their yearning and their two houses both alike in dignity. whaddya gonna do, yunno


End file.
